Effective Tips & Scripts for Insurance Cold Calling

Cold calling in the insurance industry is a sales technique that involves calling a potential customer with the intent of gauging their interest in insurance plans. These callers are not expecting a call and have not shown previous interest in what you offer.

Because of this, it is important to learn how to spark their interest and keep them on the phone long enough to really listen to your sales pitch.

Cold calling is a technique used in almost every industry but is especially common in the insurance industry. A significant portion of entry-level insurance sales professionals’ daily duties include cold calling, but salespeople of all levels use this technique.

The leads you can receive from cold calling can improve your sales numbers and help you build a network of potential customers.

Cold calls can also help insurance companies remain proactive about attracting new customers. They can also help marketers and salespeople understand their company’s reputation by interacting directly with their target audience.

Benefits of cold calling

While cold calling often seems daunting and overwhelming for many insurance agents, it is one of the cheapest and most interactive ways to contact and sell. Performing cold calls regularly provides an array of benefits, including:

Promotes brand awareness of both your name and the name of your agency
Adds a personal touch to lead generation
Reduces the costs of hiring a telemarketing firm
Helps build sales skills
Builds a relationship with those you call, something that is often more difficult when prospects are first contacted by a telemarketing company instead
Helps create interest in the policies you offer
Saves time by quickly determining who is qualified, often allowing you to write policies the same day
Generates a larger pipeline of warm leads

Tips for improving insurance cold calling results

Here are 12 tips you can use to improve the results of your cold calls:

Believe in your product

If you believe in the insurance plans you sell, you are more likely to convince someone else that they should believe in it, as well. People want to feel as though they are receiving a beneficial deal and that they can trust the person with whom they’re conducting business.

If you’re knowledgeable about the insurance industry and believe you can help your customers, you may persuade more sales prospects than you would otherwise.

Conduct research

Consider researching prospective customers before you call them to determine whether they have similar interests or know a mutual contact. You can use the latter to determine who you can use to begin an engaging conversation with them. Some methods of research include searching for a customer’s social media profile or company website.

Researching your customer before your call can also help you determine whether there’s a high likelihood of them even buying your insurance. You can save time by determining which prospective clients are likely to buy insurance before you call.

Prepare your workspace

Cold calling can be a time-consuming task. This is why it’s important to ensure that you prepare your workspace for long periods. Consider having a water bottle and some snacks nearby in between calls to maintain your energy.

You may also want to invest in a comfortable chair or ergonomic desk so you can comfortably sit for an extended period while conducting cold calls. Comfortability often helps you maintain a friendly and engaging tone while contacting potential customers.

Stay positive

Consider maintaining a positive tone and attitude while cold calling to seem more inviting. A prospective client might be more willing to listen to someone who sounds engaged and excited. This can encourage customers to stay on the phone longer and develop an interest in buying your insurance plan.

Remaining positive also helps you overcome the challenges associated with rejected calls or tough sales.

Trust your instincts

When on the phone with customers, it’s important to build a rapport with them to help establish trust and familiarity. However, you can also use your instincts to determine who is actually interested in becoming a buyer.

Effective sales instincts help you save time and focus on new prospective callers. If a caller continues to direct the conversation away from your insurance plans or if they talk about an unrelated topic after refusing insurance, these can be indicators that you should focus on a new prospective client.

Practice your calls

It’s also beneficial to practice your calls with peers or friends to ensure that your script sounds natural and positive. Practicing your script repeatedly also helps you memorize it, which can help you sound more engaging, and can help you prepare for the variety of responses you may receive from prospective customers.

Once you’ve experienced a certain response, it becomes easier to handle it again, therefore improving your technique and professionalism.

Determine the proper time to call

Timing is essential to conducting a successful phone call because prospective clients may be more receptive to your call when they are undistracted and relaxed.

For example, if you call too early in the morning, your prospective customer may be just arriving at work, but if you call too late in the evening, they may have already returned home.

Consider the time of day in which you find the most success and try to place most of your calls during that time. This can help increase your success rate and make your process more efficient.

Let the customer talk

An indicator of a potential customer who wants to buy your insurance plans is someone who talks and asks questions. This is why it is important to allow your customers to talk and build a rapport with you.

This can help establish trust with a customer, which is an important step toward selling them insurance.

While developing your rapport, try to remain focused on your insurance plans while also allowing them to generate a genuine conversation. This creates a balance that can help you complete a sale.

Remain focused

When on your call, it’s important to build trust and have a genuine conversation with a customer, but it’s also important to manage your time wisely. Consider redirecting your conversations to your insurance plans that you have available when you can to ensure that a conversation remains effective.

This focus can help you guide a customer toward making a sale, and prospective clients also typically appreciate speaking with someone who is direct and respects their time by keeping calls brief and informative.

Try also ensuring that you remain focused on your personal cold calling goals. Consider monitoring how many sales you’ve completed or how many calls you’ve made to track the goals you and your manager have set.

Prepare for multiple outcomes

Cold calling often requires calling sales leads who might not complete a purchase, which can lead to a variety of outcomes. In your cold calling script, there are general questions you may want to ask your prospective customer, but before you call them, consider several possible responses. This can help you prepare for different answers you may receive—whether they are positive or negative.

Once you feel more prepared, you can try to transition negative responses into positive conversations, or you can use your instincts to determine when to call someone else.

Cold calling scripts

Insurance cold calling scripts are well-crafted documents that guide agents when interacting with clients on a sales call.

When you’re making a life insurance cold call, scripts can help eliminate mistakes and offer predetermined answers to common questions, allowing agents to advise consumers accurately and be prepared for tough conversations. Because many businesses consider their sales scripts to be corporate policy, the language used should follow standard business practices and represent the firm’s brand.

By using a telemarketing script for insurance, a firm can ensure that its messaging is consistent with its corporate values while keeping prospect demands in mind.

Cold calling scripts for insurance sales you should know

Starting insurance sales conversations about insurance is easy with the right cold calling scripts for insurance sales. They help you connect with potential clients and boost your insurance sales.

Free quote pitch

Everyone loves free stuff. As an insurance agent, giving free quotes is second nature to keeping the discussion going with prospects. Your life insurance sales pitch script may go as follows:

“Hello, am I speaking with (name of prospect)? This is (your name) phoning from (your insurance agency). I’m calling to let you know I’m offering free quotes on life insurance plans that can fit your lifestyle. Would you like to explore your options, no strings attached?”

The elevator pitch

Elevator pitches are designed to be short and sweet, named so for being able to be delivered in the span of an elevator ride. To be effective when selling life insurance, it’s important to address a specific pain point that your prospect has — especially when you have such a short amount of time to catch their attention.

Typically, there are four components to an effective elevator pitch:

A hook for your prospect’s attention
The pain point
What are the advantages of your company’s policy? (Is it a reduced cost? Do you provide policy bundles? Are you able to process policies more quickly?)
Your competitive difference or unique selling proposition (USP)

Below is an example of a short and sweet insurance phone script:

“Hello, am I speaking with (name of prospect)? I’m calling from (your insurance agency), and my name is (your name). I know your time is valuable, so I’ll be quick. I’m calling to let you know we offer $200,000 of Term Life Insurance Coverage for as low as $12 per month. Additionally, we offer a guarantee of coverage, no matter your age.”

This short message is straight to the point, delivers your value proposition, and addresses a common pain point (in this case, the prospect’s age or budget). It also grabs their attention with something everyone will want: a low monthly commitment.

Follow up pitch

One of the most important parts of the sales process is following up with prospects who have expressed interest in your website. They’re already hooked since they’ve shown an interest in a policy, so they likely only need a little more encouragement to take the final step. Follow-up cold-calling scripts for insurance look something like this:

“Hello, is this (name of prospect)? My name is (your name), and I’m from (insurance agency). I’m calling to inquire about the life insurance information you requested on our website. I’m looking through your information, and it appears you’re searching for a term life policy, is that correct?”

Make a point of mentioning the insurance they’ve expressed interest in right away, so they know you’re responding to a legitimate inquiry. You can use the policy request as a springboard to discuss what you can give them and add value to the conversation.

Wait for their response. If the prospect is interested in looking through policies right away, walk them through some of their issues and make sure you’re providing a supportive environment.

Policyholder pitch

Some of the people you contact may already have a policy for life insurance. However, this is a hurdle that can be overcome with guidance from the right cold-calling scripts for insurance.

“Hello (prospect’s name). I’m (your name), and I’m from (insurance agency). I know your time is valuable, but I’m calling to let you know about our newest package.”

At this point, they’ll tell you they’re already covered. However, any information you can acquire (during your initial phone contact or follow-up calls) that will help you establish a relationship is critical.

Everyone wants to save money, and the possibility of getting a better deal will always be intriguing to those already paying for a policy.

Objection pitch

Overcoming objections is an essential sales skill. Aside from reducing the number of complaints, successful salespeople also focus on preventing them in the first place. These are the most common complaints and reasons for prospects hanging up that most agents experience during a cold call:

I don’t require life insurance at this time.
I’ve already narrowed down my options for an insurance company.
This week has been incredibly hectic for me.
I’m having trouble deciding which insurance plan is best for me.
I don’t believe I’ll be able to afford insurance.
I already have life insurance.
Right now, money is a little tight.
I’m not sure if an insurance plan will fit into my budget.

The following cold calling scripts for insurance can help you deal with such arguments and get the prospect engaged with your policies. Typically, you need to have this script ready to go when you experience any rebuttals, and it will typically come up in the middle of one of the previously mentioned scripts.

“I understand your hesitation. Life insurance is a serious decision. When you say (repeat the objection inquisitively), can you tell me more about that?”

Is cold calling still an effective strategy?

Unfortunately, you will find many agents who are still hesitant to spend the day cold calling despite the benefits listed above. While the age of cold calling may slowly be dying, the benefits you can attain when cold calling is done correctly are worth the effort.

In addition, even if you don’t get a sale on that initial call, turning cold leads into warm leads is an effective marketing strategy.

Effective Tips & Scripts for Insurance Cold Calling

Benefits of cold calling